Sue Akers's witness statement that the Sun made sustained, five-figure payments to public officials for "salacious" stories contrasts sharply with recent interventions made by former Sun editor Kelvin MacKenzie, and the tabloid's veteran associate editor Trevor Kavanagh.

Both accused the police of overreacting in the week after five more Sun journalists had been arrested as part of the Operation Elveden investigation into alleged corrupt payments to public officials. MacKenzie, writing in the Daily Mail, said that "the Sun journalists who have been arrested are not accused of enriching themselves – they were simply researching stories about scandals at hospitals, scandals at army bases and scandals in police stations that they believed their readers were entitled to know about". The former Sun editor described the sources as "whistleblowers" and argued that any payment was irrelevant to the quality of their information. "If the whistleblower asks for money, so what?"

Kavanagh used similar language in a column for the Sun two weeks ago, saying that the Sun journalists had acted to unearth news, telling stories that "sometimes involve whistleblowers. Sometimes money changes hands.

"This has been standard procedure as long as newspapers have existed, here and abroad."

He added there was "nothing disreputable" and that "without good sources no newspaper could uncover scandals in the public interest".